Never Saw it Coming by Linwood Barclay: A Little too Predictable

Yep, the title wasn’t very apt for this book, in my humble opinion. I actually saw an awful lot of the plot coming, which is why I was actually really enjoying it … until the last couple of chapters and it went downhill a little for me.

But, I enjoyed it. It struck me as quite an easy read and quick to get through; I read it within around 4-5 days. It’s sometimes nice to read a shorter book (Nice for my Goodreads 2016 Challenge, too, which I’m really lagging in, so it’s good to get through a book quickly and have one more in the bag!)

Okay, so this book wasn’t on my TBR or anything. I bought it for just £1 in WHSmiths (with this voucher I got from a newspaper). But there’s actually a long story behind me having to get this book, involving my sister, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , a fly, and the book being confiscated from me, but I’ll try and keep it short, aha!

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(Short Version of the Long Story Behind Why I Read This Book)

So yeah, I was borrowing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from my sister whilst I was away on holiday. She had devoured it within three days and she was desperate for me to read it so she could talk about it with me. It was all going well and I was 150 pages in and ABSOLUTELY LOVING IT. So this holiday home we were staying at (which, by the way, was AMAZING – it had a swimming pool and everything, it was just excellent) was right next door to some riding stables, hence, there was an awful lot of flies around, outside, in the house, everywhere.

Now, I can’t stand insects (like, I can’t even be in the same room as one), so when there was a big ugly bluebottle in my bedroom one night, I used the nearest available object (yep, you guessed it: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) to swot it… Honestly, I just panic and poor Harry Potter and the Cursed Child took the brunt of my phobia that night… Unfortunately my sister saw this quick swot as a serious offence which had damaged the book beyond belief (apparently there was blood and a squashed fly on the back of the book, afterwards 😮 ) and she ripped it off me, so I had to put that book on hold until I’d persuaded her to let me borrow it from her again.

But… do not fear… I will be reading that book at some point in the near future – even if I have to creep into her room at night and steal the book and read it under my duvet.

Just thinking…I really hope she’s not reading this post!! 😮

So I hadn’t brought any other books away with me, so I ended up buying Never Saw It Coming by Linwood Barclay… Phew, I told you it was a long story…

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(And Now Swiftly Getting Back to My Review…)

Right, back to Never Saw It Coming: it’s a thriller, and I was hooked by the mysterious blurb. The book is basically about a con-artist: Keisha Ceylon, who pretends to be a physic and goes to families that she has seen on the news, pleading for information about lost relatives, etc, claiming that she has visions about their whereabouts. And she asks for money upfront as a charge for this service.

When Keisha accidentally correctly predicts what has happened to a man who’s wife has disappeared, she puts herself in serious danger.

I actually didn’t expect this book to be quite as good as it was. I hadn’t heard anything about it before I picked it up and read it – or the author either, as far as I can remember, so I thought it might just be quite, I dunno, poor, badly written, unexciting, but of course, just because it’s not that well-known, doesn’t mean it is any of those things… The writing was actually really good, and I loved how fast-moving the book was. It was a good “quick read”. You could also dip in and out of it and not feel like you had to sit down and properly read it to get into it, so it was perfect for on holiday, really.

The weak points, in my opinion, were the characters, who weren’t very well-developed. The narration of the story; now this might be just personal preference, but I just don’t think that third person worked very well for this story, I think it would have been better told from first person. And finally, the predictability of the plot wasn’t good.

But it kept me entertained, and it wasn’t as if the weak points made the book unbearable to read. It was a good book, and I’m going to give it a star rating for three stars out of five. I can certainly see why it’s not up there with Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train and one I read recently: The Swimming Pool, however, definitely worth a read! 🙂

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So I hope that you enjoyed my review (and the bonus story that came with it, aha!)

Thank you for reading my review, everyone!